Do Foreign Female Sex Workers Have No Human Rights?

Recently, the Chungshan Precinct of the Taipei City Police Department cracked a prostitution ring that brought Russian women to Taiwan to engage in sex work. That very night, prime-time news broadcasted footage of the criminal suspects inside the police station, and the next major newspaper prominently published clear photographs of the suspect's face. Through the influence of powerful media, the identity and appearance of the Russian woman, Julia, were instantly exposed to the broad social audience. Foreign women engaging in sex work have always been objects of media voyeurism. Perhaps the dramatic effect of broadcasting criminals' faces through media lenses also satisfies the collective psychological state of social voyeurism. However, after this fleeting glimpse before the camera, following a farce akin to 'parading through the streets to be publicly shamed,' we cannot help but ask: where are the human rights of the criminal suspects? And where are the human rights perspectives of the Ministry of the Interior and the Taipei City Government?

We vividly remember that last April, the Judicial Yuan set a national precedent by instructing the Taiwan High Court to design a hood style to be provided to litigants or interested parties who did not wish to be exposed, and immediately issued an official document instructing courts of the first and second instances nationwide to follow suit; subsequently, in August of last year, the National Police Agency of the Ministry of the Interior also cited compliance with the principle of 'non-disclosure of investigations' and the enforcement of the 'presumption of innocence' to announce the implementation of the 'Regulations on Criminal Suspects Wearing Hoods.' It required all police agencies to diligently protect the human rights of defendants, prohibiting the arbitrary permission of media to photograph defendants' identities, and requiring that hoods be provided for defendants to wear. In addition, the Ministry of Justice also issued an official letter to the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office in May of last year, demanding the implementation of the latter part of Article 4 of the 'Key Points to Be Observed by Prosecutors' Offices When Using Handcuffs and Restraints to Guard and Escort Defendants and Convicts,' which states, 'If the consent of the defendant is obtained, they may be fitted with a hood or mask,' requiring local prosecutors' offices to prepare necessary hoods or masks and proactively inform defendants during the process of escorting suspects or investigating crimes that they may choose to use them.

However, less than half a year later, under the consideration of public backlash, the Ministry of the Interior executed a 180-degree policy U-turn, announcing that all police agencies nationwide, except for juvenile criminal suspects, would have their hoods removed across the board; based on the protection of human rights, the police could not proactively provide suspect photographs to the media and strictly prohibited the media from photographing suspects inside police stations. Director-General Yu's new policy immediately sparked controversy from all sectors, not only plunging the National Police Agency and the Ministry of the Interior into self-contradiction, but also drawing skepticism from human rights organizations such as the Judicial Reform Foundation, who questioned that this measure not only risked infringing upon human rights but also completely misinterpreted the meaning of 'identification' as a legal evidentiary method. At the time, Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou also expressed disapproval, believing that in actual implementation, it would trigger controversies over whether media reporting and photographing processes infringe upon the human rights of criminal suspects. The words are still ringing in our ears, yet this time in the news of the Taipei City Chungshan Precinct cracking the foreign women prostitution case, the facial features and names of the criminal suspects were still clearly exposed. Regarding this news, we have seen no concrete response whatsoever from the Taipei City Government and the National Police Agency of the Ministry of the Interior; we have only witnessed the human rights of foreign women being ruthlessly ignored after the removal of the hoods! Director-General Yu initially used 'convenience of identification' as a reason, arguing that media reports could allow victims to identify suspects. In reality, patrons would never show up to publicly identify them; what crime-prevention significance does such photography hold? Since Mayor Ma previously criticized the Ministry of the Interior's wrongdoing, is this news occurring within the jurisdiction of Taipei City not even more unforgivable?

Fortunately, the Taipei City Government's municipal meeting resolved the day before yesterday (February 18) that in the future, Taipei City will uniformly use safety helmets as replacements when escorting suspects, in order to implement human rights safeguards. This belated resolution can barely be regarded as a remedial measure by the Taipei City Government, and perhaps in the future, incidents like this one where media blatantly broadcast footage of suspects' faces will hopefully no longer occur. Unfortunately, from the remarks subsequently published by the Minister of the Interior and the Director-General of the National Police Agency, we still cannot sense any pragmatic consideration by central competent authorities in balancing freedom of the press with the human rights of suspects. Regarding the contradictory phenomenon of being unable to block or even condoning media photography on the one hand, while claiming that the police have strictly required all police stations not to allow media photography on the other, the public can perhaps only sigh that 'Russian cats' are not of our kind, and in the eyes of officials, they have no so-called 'human' rights to speak of?!

※ Published in: Liberty Times